Seoul Grand Zoo
Our last trip to the big zoo before heading to the States! We made the most of it, and he just kept wanting more and more animals.
He started waking up at 5. He was talking a lot about mama – pretty sure he was dreaming about getting home and looking for mama, or something along those lines. He nursed and dozed until getting up at 5:40. After she left, he cuddled with Peter Rabbit and me and we read Humpty Dumpty several times. He was then watching one of the 5-TOUCH videos, and when there was a song about frogs he wanted his froggy towel and wore it a bit. He saw my phone and wanted to watch videos on it, so I let him watch our videos on YouTube. He requested “answer me questions, picnic table, eating kimbap”, referring to the spot by the little pond where we have eaten several times and I’ve quizzed him on spelling words. Before we left, he wanted the spray bottle, and I let him have it as I changed him and got him in the backpack. He was happily spraying everything he could from both spots. He tried for a second to convince me to take it with us, but I explained it was mama’s and it had to stay here and he was fine with it.
We left right at 8 – seemed early, but the earlier the better. On the Subway he did art on the iPad most of the way down. For much of the time he was using the paint roller tool and layering colors over colors. It made me think of Tristan Tzara and the Dadaists. But then he switched tools and drew something in red and as he did so said “Whale in there…draw seaweed.” I helped him switch to green, then he drew squiggly lines as seaweed. His first intentionally representative piece of art.
From that he moved to the cursive app, and we got into switching fonts. He really liked different fonts, and learned the word, and after watching me do it a couple times figured out how to change it himself.
We made the long walk up to the zoo, stopping first at C U for kimbap, a fried egg sandwich, and 3 mango soymilks – one for today and two for him to have on the plane. We also slowed on the walk up to look at a bunch of photos they had up of scenes around Seoul Grand Park. August wanted to eat right away, which made sense as a.) he was up early and b.) except for a couple bites of quesadilla that Carly had left for him, neither of us had had breakfast.
We got to the zoo, and first he wanted to look at the paintings of animals near the entrance. He picked out the Asian black bear and declared he wanted to see that today. We went back and got a map, and he wanted it. I folded it so he could see most of the zoo and handed it to him in the backpack. He saw the flamingos and giraffes and wanted to see them. So we walked to the flamingos and watched them for several minutes. Or, more correctly, watched the zookeepers spraying with a hose and preparing food. After 10 minutes or so he wanted to eat, so we went to a blue-covered picinic table from which we could see both the flamingos and giraffes and ate there. He liked the sandwich (sans the lettuce, which I took out) and it was the first non-PB sandwich he has really eaten and held on his own. Odd milestone, I know, but stuck out to me.
He had pooped, so we went to change him in the changing room. Despite talking about the sit up/lie down ‘game’ and pointing out how nice the changing tables were, he didn’t want to lie down, then I realized that poop was squeezing out of his shorts. So we did it standing up, and got through it. We left, and got him in the backpack, and he was ready for a nap: “Nap time”. We walked a bit and he fell asleep, and slept in the cafeteria area near the dolphin show from 11:28 to 12:45. When he woke up he said “Would you like to get out sir?” and answered his own question, “Yes!” We looked at the map again, and he decided he wanted to go to the South American pavilion. So we headed there, but first he saw the dolphin fountain and we watched that for a couple minutes. We also saw the pictures of different whales and learned ‘dolphin’ and ‘whale’ in Korean (고래 and 도고래 ) and Spanish. On our way up the hill, we were then distracted by the predator birds, and saw the hawks and eagles and condors. We were up by an Andean condor when he heard loud birds. It was the sea eagles and we went back down to see them making noise.
We got to the South American pavilion and saw a bunch of new animals for August: llamas, maras, tapirs, capybaras, crocodile, caiman, anteaters, armadillos, raccoons. We also saw coatis, which he said were hiding, and later talked about how they were climbing in the trees, and all sorts of turtles, which he called in Korean, and anacondas. We left out the back and started to walk up and around to see the bison, then head to the water. He was talking about playing in the water: “Want to play in the water like a snakes doing…and a turtle.” By the bison we found a couple of cats on the path, then stopped on a platform and had a snack. We then kept walking, and saw tahrs, which were new to both of us.
We walked through the little wildlife conservation education building, and then outside that he saw a big map of the park. He looked at it, and got hooked on the botanical garden (which we call the conservatory). He kept choosing that, and look at other animals, over going and playing in the stream. Took a long time to get out of the zoo, as we were literally at the far end of the zoo, and August had chosen the longest path. Along the way we saw the Asian black bears, got down to see the otters and get Smokey out, played ‘Smokey sees…’ and finally made it to the botanical gardens. We went in for a few minutes, then continued on our way out, seeing the lesser pandas and zebras, then walking to the pond area for a second to put his hat back on, which he had taken off. He wanted to get down and get rocks and was sad when I said no. I then pointed out the koi, which got his attention, and he remembered the time by the National Museum when he saw the older boys throwing food to the koi and August thought it was really messy: “Remember the messy…the koi one…want to find three messy things, dropping food to the koi fish.”
As we left the zoo he kept saying “More…more animals.” The trip home was unevenful, and we got home at 5:26. Thought we had gotten home before Carly, so he was ready to drop off our stuff then go out to the elevators to meet her, but she had gotten home early and August was very surprised by that.
Straightforward evening. He ate nutty noodles and Carly gave him a bath. He was asleep at 7:40.
New words/phrases: font, 고래 도고래, conservatory, 텃밭 (vegetable garden), bañera (bath)
Cuddling and reading:
His picture on the way down:
A new song:
Map:
Maras:
Sandwich fun:
More maps:
Resting with Smokey:
Headed home:
Transferring to the bus: